pre-print version; accepted for publication in NLLT
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory manuscript No.
(will be inserted by the editor)

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin
dique and zhende
Mengxi Yuan · Yurie Hara

the date of receipt and acceptance should be inserted later

Abstract This paper explores how discourse markers contribute to the update of discourse
through a detailed study of Mandarin dique ‘indeed’ and zhende ‘really’. On the basis of
empirical data and a naturalness rating experiment, we show that dique and zhende makesimilar yet different contributions to discourse updates. Dique presupposes that its prejacentissue is old, while zhende presupposes that its prejacent issue is old and that some discourse
participant has failed to resolve this issue. Furthermore, dique and zhende can embed bothassertions and questions. This supports Farkas & Bruce’s (2010) Table stack model, which
provides a uniform treatment for assertions and questions.
Keywords Speech Acts · Discourse structure · Common Ground · Table stack ·Presupposition · Mandarin

1 Introduction
In daily language use, most of our utterances are not isolated from their preceding andfollowing utterances. Utterances are always connected with each other to form a longer
unit of language, i.e., discourse. In order to make the discourse coherent and easy tounderstand, we use a class of lexical expressions to connect individual utterances and ‘glue’
them together. These expressions are often referred to as discourse markers.1 This study is
Mengxi Yuan
Jinan University, School of Humanities
E-mail: mengxiyuan49@hotmail.com
Yurie Hara
Waseda University, Faculty of Science and Engineering
E-mail: yuriehara@aoni.waseda.jp
1 A variety of terms are used to refer to this class of expressions, including ‘discourse marker’ (Schiffrin
1987), ‘pragmatic marker’ (Fraser, 1996; Brinton, 1996), ‘discourse particle’ (Schourup 1985), ‘connective’(Blakemore 1987), etc. The term ‘discourse marker’ and ‘discourse particle’ are both frequently used. We did
not adopt the term ‘discourse particle’ for the words discussed in this study (i.e., dique and zhende), since
they are polysyllabic and contain significant phonetic content, and thus do not fit the label ‘particle’.

2Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

concerned with two Mandarin discourse markers, dique ‘indeed’ and zhende ‘really’, which
are illustrated below:2(1)

Dique, Li chuguo le.
indeed Li go-abroad PERF
‘Indeed, Li went abroad.’(2)

Zhende, Li chuguo le.
really Li go-abroad PERF
‘Really, Li went abroad.’

Dique and zhende are treated as adverbs in traditional Chinese grammar. They do notcontribute to the propositional content of the utterance. (1), (2) and (3) have the same
propositional content and the same truth conditions. (3) is true if and only if Li went abroad,and so are (1) and (2).
(3)

Li chuguo le.
Li go-abroad PERF
‘Li went abroad.’

What dique and zhende do is to convey information about how the utterance containing
them is related to the prior discourse, and hence these two adverbs belong to the group of
discourse markers. As a first approximation, dique in (1) suggests that this utterance is anagreement with an old issue. In (4), B uses dique to show his agreement with A’s resolutionof the issue, i.e., whether or not Li went abroad.
(4)

A:

B:

Li chuguo le.
Li go-abroad PERF
‘Li went abroad.’
Dique, ta chuguo le.
Indeed he go-abroad PERF
‘Indeed, he went abroad.’

Zhende works differently. (2) suggests that the speaker is trying to convince the addresseeof the proposition p ‘Li went abroad’, that is, the addressee does not quite believe p in
the previous discourse. For example, in (5), by using zhende, the speaker C shows that hedisagrees with B’s utterance and agrees with A’s utterance.
(5)

A:

B:

C:

Li chuguo le.
Li go-abroad PERF
‘Li went abroad.’
Bu keneng!
no possible‘Impossible!’
Zhende, ta chuguo le.
really he go-abroad PERF
‘Really, he went abroad.’

Deleting the discourse markers in (4) and (5) does not change the propositional content of theutterances in which they occur. However, without dique and zhende, the utterances become
2 The Mandarin data reported in this paper are based on the introspection of the first author, who is a native
speaker of Mandarin Chinese, unless otherwise noted.

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende3

isolated from the prior discourse, and it sounds like B in (4) and C in (5) are speaking tothemselves rather than responding to the previous utterances.
The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we reveal the semantic contribution of dique andzhende. These discourse markers make consistent contributions in assertions and questions.
We propose that dique marks its prejacent issue as an old issue in both assertions andquestions, whereas zhende marks its prejacent issue as old and unresolved in both speechacts. The different functions of dique and zhende explains why (1) and (2) are felicitousin different contexts. The second goal of this paper is to support the Stalnakerian (1978)
discourse structure in which the progression of a discourse is regarded as a series of updates
on the Common Ground. To formalize the semantics of dique and zhende, in particular, we
support Farkas & Bruce’s (2010) idea that there is an overlap in the function of assertions andquestions. Farkas & Bruce (2010) focus on the similarity between assertions and questions
and treat both speech acts in a uniform fashion. More specifically, both an assertion and aquestion raise an issue on the Table and update the projected set. Since dique and zhende
have the same function in assertions and questions, i.e., indicating an old issue and anunresolved issue, the current study offers additional support for Farkas & Bruce’s (2010)
unified model of the discourse structure.
The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents introspection-based generalizations of the distributions of dique and zhende across different speech acts. In both assertions
and questions, dique guides the discourse by indicating that its prejacent is an old issue,
whereas zhende indicates that its prejacent issue is old and unresolved. These generalizations
are empirically supported by a naturalness rating experiment. Section 3 proposes thatdique and zhende are presupposition triggers and provides semantic definitions for themwithin the stack model of Farkas & Bruce (2010), where both assertions and questions arecharacterized as adding issues onto the Table stack and updating the projected set. Adopting
Farkas & Bruce’s (2010) framework allows us to offer a unified analysis of the discourse
markers. Dique presupposes that its prejacent issue is on the top of the Table stack inboth assertions and questions, and zhende additionally presupposes that some discourse
participant has failed to resolve the issue in both speech acts. We also elaborate on how
the study of dique/zhende serves as support for Farkas & Bruce’s model. Section 4 showsthat zhende is preferred to dique when the presuppositions of zhende are satisfied, whichis correctly predicted by the principle of MAXIMIZE PRESUPPOSITION (Heim, 1991). This
result corroborates our presuppositional analysis. Section 5 concludes this study.

2 Dique and zhende in assertions and questions
Mandarin discourse markers dique and zhende are felicitous in different contexts. For
example, in (6), B can use dique to show his agreement with A, but it is infelicitous for
B to use zhende.
(6)

A:

Zuowan xiayu le.
last-night rain PERF
‘It rained last night.’(B heard the sound of rain last night, so he knows that it rained.)
B: Dique/#Zhende, xiayu le.
indeed/really rain PERF
‘Indeed, it rained.’/‘#Really, it rained.’

4

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

The same contrast is observed in other languages. Just like Mandarin dique and zhende,
English indeed and really convey information about how the utterance containing them isrelated to the prior discourse. For example, indeed in (7) suggests that B’s utterance is anagreement with the previous utterance, and really in (8) suggests that C disagrees with B’sutterance and C is trying to convince B of the truth of the proposition ‘Li went abroad’.3
(7)

A:
B:

Li went abroad.
Indeed, he went abroad.

(8)

A:
B:
C:

Li went abroad.
Impossible!
Really, he went abroad.

The same contrast observed between Mandarin dique and zhende is found between English
indeed and really. English indeed is felicitous in an example like (9), but really is not,indicating that there exists some semantic difference between indeed and really.
(9)

A: It rained last night.
(B heard the sound of rain last night, so he knows that it rained.)
B: Indeed, it rained./#Really, it rained.

Zeevat (2003: 102) proposes that indeed marks its prejacent as old information. For example,
indeed in (7) marks that its prejacent ‘Li went abroad’ is old information. This correctlypredicts that indeed is felicitous in (9), where ‘It rained last night’ has been asserted by A
and is thus old information.
How about English really? According to Romero & Han (2004: 627), really has ameaning identical to the semantic operator VERUM. The VERUM operator is an abstract
operator manifested as the VERUM focus, which is a contrastive focus on the verb or thecomplementizer. For example, in (10-a), the focal stress on the verb did signals the presenceof the VERUM operator. Romero & Han (2004) claim that both really(p) and VERUM(p) areused to assert that the speaker is certain that p should be added to the Common Ground(Stalnaker, 1978). For example, both sentences in (10) indicate that the speaker has a highlevel of certainty that ‘It rained last night’ should be a common belief shared by everyone.
(10)

a.
b.

It DID rain.
It really rained.

Romero & Han’s analysis, without modification, makes the wrong prediction for English
data like (9). In (9), A is committed to p ‘It rained last night’, and A’s assertion can beunderstood as inviting B to accept p as a common belief. If really indicated the speaker’s
certainty that p should be a common belief, then it would be appropriate for B to use reallyto show his acceptance of p as a common belief. It is not clear why the use of really turns
out to be infelicitous.4 Similarly, if we extend Romero & Han’s (2004) analysis to Mandarin
zhende and propose that zhende indicates the speaker’s certainty, we would not be able toexplain why the use of zhende is infelicitous in (6).
3 The English data in (7), (8) and (9) are based on the introspection of two English native speakers theauthors consulted.
4 Romero & Han (2004) only present examples containing VP-initial really, but they did not distinguishbetween sentence-initial and VP-initial really in their discussion of really. Hence we assume that really at both
positions is claimed to have the same semantics as the VERUM operator in their analysis. Therefore, Romero& Han’s (2004) analysis cannot explain why the use of really is infelicitous in (9) unless they propose a
different semantics for sentence-initial really from that of the VERUM operator.

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende

5

Another discourse marker that is similar to Mandarin zhende is the German unstressed
particle doch. The particle doch is claimed to be a correction marker that triggers a correction
presupposition (Zeevat, 2003; Grosz, 2014, among others).5 According to Grosz (2014),
an assertion containing the particle doch, represented as doch(p), presupposes that the
proposition p is uncontroversial and that p corrects a salient proposition q. For example,in (11), the use of doch presupposes that: 1) the proposition p ‘Jan washed up’ is firmly
established in the Common Ground; 2) there is a contextually salient focus alternative of p,
namely the proposition q ‘Jan needs to cook’, and the current context entails ¬(p ∧ q). The
presupposition triggered by doch is satisfied in (11) and thus the use of doch is felicitous.
By using doch, the speaker is correcting the proposition q ‘Jan needs to cook’.
(11)

Jan muss nicht kochen. Er hat doch abgewaschen.
J needs not cook he has doch washed.up‘Jan doesn’t need to cook. He doch washed up.’conveys: ‘Jan doesn’t need to cook, because he washed up.’

(Grosz 2014: 164)

The proposition q is a focus alternative of p, and hence q can also be the negation of p,i.e., ¬p. As in (12), doch presupposes that p ‘these flowers are beautiful’ is established andthat there is a contextually salient focus alternative of p, namely ¬p ‘these flowers are not
beautiful’, and the current utterance context (trivially) entails ¬(p ∧ ¬p). By using doch, B
is correcting A’s assertion.
(12)

A:

B:

Schau mal! Diese Blumen sind so hässlich.
look MAL these flowers are so ugly.
‘Have a look! These flowers are so ugly.’
Was hast du denn? Diese Blumen sind doch schön!
what have you DENN these flowers are doch beautiful‘What is your problem? These flowers are doch beautiful!’ (Grosz 2014: 165)

The adverb zhende is similar to doch in that zhende is often used in corrections. As shownin (5), repeated here as (13), by using zhende, C is correcting B’s statement.
(13)

A:
B:
C:

Li chuguo le.
‘Li went abroad.’
Bu keneng!
‘Impossible!’
Zhende, ta chuguo le.
‘Really, he went abroad.’

The difference between zhende and doch is that zhende(p) can only be used to correct an
opposite proposition ¬p (as in (13)), whereas doch(p) is used to correct any focus alternativeof p (including ¬p and other propositions). Hence, zhende cannot be used in a context like
(14). As we will see in Section 2.2, this is because zhende(p) indicates that some discourse
participant does not believe p.
(14)#Jian bu xuyao zuofan. Ta zhende zuo guo qingjie le.
Jan no need cook he really do EXP wash PERF
‘Jan doesn’t need to cook. He really washed up.’

5 See more analyses of discourse items in Germanic and Romance languages in Karagjosova(2004, 2006), Coniglio (2008), Coniglio & Zegrean (2010), McCready & Zimmermann (2011) andKaufmann & Kaufmann (2012).

6

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

As can be seen, Mandarin zhende and German doch exhibit different semantic
properties. The previous analysis of German doch is enlightening but will not be adopted
directly in the study of Mandarin zhende.
In this section, we showed that dique and zhende make different contributions to the
update of discourse, which explains the contrast in (6). We generalize the distributionsof dique in assertions and questions in Section 2.1, and then investigate the distributionsof zhende in assertions and questions in Section 2.2. The data show that dique marks its
prejacent issue as old, while zhende marks its prejacent issue as old and unresolved. These
conclusions are supported by a naturalness rating experiment reported in Section 2.3.

2.1 Dique in assertions and questions
The intuition on utterances containing dique is summarized in (15).
(15)

Utterances containing dique expresses a reiteration of old information.

Motivated by (15), we propose that an utterance containing dique, represented as
dique(I ) where ‘I ’ represents an issue under discussion,6 marks the discourse and indicatesthat I is an old issue:(16)

Let I be an issue. Dique(I ) indicates:
a. I is an old issue.
b. All of the discourse participants believe that I is an old issue, and recognizethat they share this belief.

The formal implementation of this proposal is given in Section 3.2. Let us illustrate first
the two components of the contribution made by dique, (16-a) and (16-b), in Sections 2.1.1
and 2.1.2 respectively.
2.1.1 Old issue
In an assertion containing dique, represented as dique(p), the first component (16-a) saysthat p is old information, i.e., p has already been suggested by some individual. This canbe illustrated by the following example. Suppose that on the morning of June 1st, Li looks
outside and says to his wife Dique, waimian xiayu le ‘Indeed, it rained outside’. Here, Li’sutterance indicates that the proposition p ‘It rains on June 1st’ must have been suggested
by some individual in the previous context. That individual can be the speaker (i.e., Li) or
the addressee (i.e., Li’s wife), or someone else (such as a weather reporter), as illustrated by(17). By using dique, Li is reiterating the old information p and showing his agreement withthat individual.
(17)

6

Context: Li and his wife watched the weather report on the evening of May 31st,which predicted that it would rain on June 1st. On the morning of June 1st, Li looks
outside and says to his wife:
Li: Dique, waimian xiayu le.
indeed outside rain PERF
‘Indeed, it rains outside.’

See Section 3.1 for the formal definition of an issue.

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende7

If no one had predicted that it would rain on June 1st, as in (18), Li’s use of dique would be
infelicitous.
(18)

Context: Li and his wife never watch weather reports, nor do they make any
prediction about the weather. On June 1st, waking up in the morning, Li looks
outside and says to his wife:
Li: #Dique, waimian xiayu le.
‘Indeed, it rains outside.’

If p has been suggested by some individual x, then it follows that x is biased towards
p. If x is not biased towards p in the prior context, dique cannot be used. For instance, theuse of dique is infelicitous in (19), since p ‘Li went abroad’ has not been suggested (A iscommitted to ¬p).
(19)

A:

Li mei chuguo.
Li not go-abroad‘Li didn’t go abroad.’
B: #Dique, ta chuguo le.
indeed he go-abroad PERF
‘Indeed, he went abroad.’On the other hand, epistemic modal adverbs, such as keneng and yexu ‘probably’, are typicaldevices for making suggestions (Zeevat, 2003: 99). An assertion containing such adverbs
indicates that the speaker is biased towards the propositional content. Thus, B’s use of diquein (20) is felicitous.
(20)

A:

B:

Li keneng chuguo le.
Li probably go-abroad PERF
‘Li probably went abroad.’
Dique, ta chuguo le.
‘Indeed, he went abroad.’

The effect of the first component of dique(p), (16-a), can be observed by the fact thatdique can occur in answers to biased questions, but not in answers to unbiased questions.
Among the various types of questions in Mandarin, ba questions (marked by the particle ba
in sentence-final position) and shi bu shi questions (with shi bu shi ‘be not be’ preceding
the predicate) are considered requests for confirmation, where the speaker is biased towards
the affirmative answer (Li & Thompson, 1981: 309-310; Liu et al., 2004: 788, 792). Diqueis felicitous in answers to these two questions, as shown in (21) and (22), because theproposition p (i.e., the affirmative answer) has already been suggested by some individual(the questioner).
(21)

A:

B:

(22)

A:

Ta xihuan tian shi ba?
he like sweet food Q‘Does he like sweet food? (I suppose he does)’
Dique, ta xihuan tian shi.
indeed he like sweet food‘Indeed, he likes sweet food.’
Ta shi bu shi xihuan tian shi?
he be not be like sweet food‘Is it the case that he likes sweet food?’

8

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

B:

Dique, ta xihuan tian shi.
‘Indeed, he likes sweet food.’

Other types of questions in Mandarin, such as A-not-A questions, can only be used
in a neutral context and indicate no bias (Li & Thompson, 1981: 550). Dique is bannedin answers to A-not-A questions, since the questioner is not biased toward the affirmative
answer:(23)

A:

Ta xi-bu-xihuan tian shi?
he like-not-like sweet food‘Does he like sweet food or not?’B: #Dique, ta xihuan tian shi.
‘Indeed, he likes sweet food.’

Dique can be used not only in assertions but also in questions. In a question containing
dique, represented as dique(I ), dique indicates that I is an old question, i.e., it has alreadybeen asked. For example, in (24), the question ‘Where did you go last Friday?’ has beenasked by Mr. Li, and thus the use of dique is felicitous. By using dique, Mrs. Li is reiterating
this old question and showing her agreement with Mr. Li that this question should be asked.
(24)

Context: Mr. and Mrs. Li just had a meeting with the teacher of their son Xiaoli.
The couple are now talking with Xiaoli:
Mr. Li: Shang zhouwu ni qu nali le?
last Friday you go where PERF
‘Where did you go last Friday?’Mrs. Li: Dique, ni qu nali le?
indeed you go where PERF
‘Indeed, where did you go?’Without Mr. Li’s question, Mrs. Li’s use of dique would be infelicitous, as in (25). Here,the question is new and should be expressed without dique.
(25)

Context: Mr. and Mrs. Li just had a meeting with the teacher of their son Xiaoli.
The couple are now talking with Xiaoli:
Mrs. Li: #Dique, shang zhouwu ni qu nali le?
‘Indeed, where did you go last Friday?’(Here, # means ‘infelicitous as discourse initial’)To sum up, the use of dique in assertions and questions indicates that its prejacent issue isold.
2.1.2 Shared belief
The second component of the contribution made by dique in (16-b) indicates that all of the
discourse participants believe that the prejacent of dique is old information and that they all
recognize that they share this belief. For example, in (17), Li and his wife both believe thatp ‘It rains on June 1st’ has been suggested by the weather reporter, and they both recognizethat they share this belief. If the speaker Li is not aware of the suggestion of p, as shownin (26), or if Li does not believe that his wife believes that p has been suggested, as shownin (27), Li’s use of dique will be infelicitous. In (26) and (27), ‘It rains on June 1st’ is
new information to at least one discourse participant, and the speaker Li will choose a bare

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende

9assertion Xiayu le ‘It rains’ to inform his wife about this new information (either new to Li
himself or new to his wife).
(26)

Context: Li’s wife watched the weather report on the evening of May 31st, which
predicted that it would rain on the morning of June 1st. Li was reading a book inanother room then, so he did not listen to the weather report. On June 1st, waking
up in the morning, Li looks outside and says to his wife:
Li: #Dique, waimian xiayu le.
‘Indeed, it rains outside.’(27)

Context: Li watched the weather report on the evening of May 31st, which predictedthat it would rain on the morning of June 1st. Li’s wife was reading a book inanother room then, so Li knew that his wife did not listen to the weather report. On
June 1st, waking up in the morning, Li looks outside and says to his wife:
Li: #Dique, waimian xiayu le.
‘Indeed, it rains outside.’

The same contribution is observed when dique is used in questions as in (24). Mrs. Li’s
use of dique in (24) suggests that Mrs. Li recognizes that this question has been asked.
One thing worth emphasizing is that the first component of the contribution ‘p has beensuggested by x’ entails that x makes his bias towards p verbally or linguistically explicit.
In other words, the individual x makes a conversational move indicating that x is biased
towards p. The use of dique is infelicitous in an assertion when ‘x is biased towards p’ isa mere common belief shared by discourse participants. Rather, dique is used when every
discourse participant shares the common belief about x’s explicit expression of his bias.
Take (28) as an example.7 According to the world knowledge that it is going to rain if thereis thunder and lightning and the contextual knowledge that there is thunder and lighting
outside, it is reasonable to assume that people are biased towards the proposition ‘It willrain’. So, it is a common belief that B is biased towards p ‘It will rain’ in (28), but it is not acommon belief that B explicitly expresses his bias towards p. In this case, the use of diqueis infelicitous.
(28)

Context: There is thunder and lightning outside. A says to B:
A: #Dique, yao xiayu le.
indeed will rain PERF
‘Indeed, it will rain.’

To summarize, the use of dique indicates that its prejacent issue is old and that every
discourse participant shares the belief that this issue is old.
2.1.3 Section summary
We observed that the discourse marker dique contributes to the update of discourse byindicating that its prejacent is an old issue. In assertions, dique is used when its prejacenthas been suggested and all the discourse participants share the belief that it has beensuggested. In questions, dique is used when its prejacent has been asked and all the discourse
participants share the belief that it has been asked.
7 We assume that p ‘It will rain’ has not been suggested by anyone in the previous discourse in (28). If
some individual has already predicted the rain, as in (17), then the use of dique is felicitous here.

10

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

2.2 Zhende in assertions and questions
The adverb zhende ‘really’ is derived from the morpheme zhen ‘truth/reality’. Intuitively,
zhende is used to emphasize truth, as described in (29).
(29)

An utterance containing zhende expresses an emphasis on truth.
a. In an assertion, the speaker uses zhende to emphasize that the propositional
content of the assertion is true.
b. In a question, the speaker uses zhende to emphasize that the question should
truly be resolved.

(29-a) can be illustrated with the example in (30). Intuitively, the speaker C in (30) uses
zhende to emphasize that the proposition p ‘it rained last night’ is true. C finds it necessary
to emphasize the truth of p, because B refused to believe p even though p has been asserted
by A. C is emphasizing the truth of p in order to convince B of p.
(30)

A:

Zuowan xiayu le.
last-night rain PERF
‘It rained last night.’
B: Meiyou xiayu.
notrain‘It didn’t rain.’C (to B): Zhende, zuowan xiayu le.
really last-night rain PERF
‘Really, it rained last night.’(29-b) can be illustrated by (31). By using a question containing zhende, the speaker
Mrs. Li is emphasizing that the addressee Xiaoli should truly resolve the question ‘Where
did you go last Friday?’ asked by Mr. Li. Mrs. Li finds it necessary to emphasize this,because she believes that the answer Xiaoli provided does not resolve the question.
(31)

Context: Mr. and Mrs. Li just had a meeting with their son Xiaoli’s teacher. The
couple are talking with Xiaoli:
Mr. Li: Shang zhouwu ni qu nali le?
last Friday you go where PERF
‘Where did you go last Friday?’
Xiaoli: Wo zai xuexiao.
I at school‘I was at school.’Mrs. Li: Women zhidao ni bu zai. Zhende, ni qu nali le?
weknow you not at really you go where PERF
‘We know that you were not. Really, where did you go?’Motivated by the intuition in (29), we propose that an utterance containing zhende,
represented as zhende(I ), indicates that I is an old and unresolved issue:(32)

Let I be an issue. zhende(I ) indicates:
a. I is an old issue.
b. All of the discourse participants share the belief that I is old.
c. Some discourse participant y has failed to resolve I .

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende11

As can be seen, the first two components of the contribution made by zhende are
the same as the two components of dique, while the third component of zhende is notshared by dique. The next sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 illustrate the first two components ofthe contribution and the third one respectively.
2.2.1 Old issue and shared belief
Like dique(I ), zhende(I ) indicates that I is an old issue and all discourse participants share
the belief that I is old. For example, in (33), the proposition p ‘It rained last night’ has beensuggested by A and every participant recognizes this.
(33)

A:

Zuowan xiayu le.
last-night rain PERF
‘It rained last night.’(B is not sure. He opens the window and sees that the ground is wet.)
B: Zhende, zuowan xiayu le.
really last-night rain PERF
‘Really, it rained last night.’

If no one had suggested p or if B did not recognize that A had suggested p, it would be
infelicitous to use zhende. In (34), ‘It rained last night’ is new information to B and should
be expressed without zhende.
(34)

Context: B opens the window in the morning and sees that the ground is wet (Noinformation about whether it rained last night has been mentioned before.)
B: #Zhende, zuowan xiayu le.
‘Really, it rained last night.’

Similarly, in (31), the issue I1 ‘Where did you go last Friday?’ has been asked by Mr. Li andevery participant recognizes this, and hence the use of zhende is felicitous. If no one had
asked the issue I1 , it would be infelicitous to use zhende. As illustrated in (35), I1 is a newquestion and should be expressed without zhende.
(35)

Context: Mr. and Mrs. Li just had a meeting with their son Xiaoli’s teacher. Afterthe meeting, Mrs. Li asks Xiaoli:
Mrs. Li: #Zhende, shang zhouwu ni qu nali le?
‘Really, where did you go last Friday?’

Like dique, zhende is used when its prejacent issue is old and all discourse participants
share this belief.
2.2.2 Unresolved issue
Besides the contributions shared with dique(I ), zhende(I ) makes a third component ofcontribution to the discourse, namely that some discourse participant y has failed to resolve
the issue I . In other words, the use of zhende in an assertion indicates that some participant yremains publicly uncommitted to p even after recognizing that p has been suggested by x as
an answer to the issue. If the participant y accepted the answer p, the issue I would have been
resolved.8 However, the participant y remains uncommitted to p, which means that y has
8

See Section 3.1 for the formal definition of issue resolvement.

12

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

failed to resolve the issue. For example, in (33), A is the suggester x, and B is the participant
y . Initially, B was not committed to p ‘It rained last night’ even though he recognized that
A had suggested p. Every discourse participant was aware that B was uncommitted to p,
since B walked to the window to check whether p was true. After checking the evidence, B
commits himself to p by using an assertion modified by zhende. If B was already committed
to p before A’s suggestion, the use of zhende would be unacceptable, as in (6), repeated hereas (36). This is because all the discourse participants were committed to p, which contradicts
with the semantic contribution of zhende(p).
(36)

A:

Zuowan xiayu le.
‘It rained last night.’(B heard the sound of rain last night, so he knows that it rained.)
B: #Zhende, xiayu le.
‘Really, it rained.’

If B immediately committed himself to p after A’s suggestion, the use of zhende would
also be unacceptable, as in (37), because all participants were committed to p before the useof zhende. Dique can be used in both (36) and (37), because the prejacent issue ‘It rainedlast night’ is old here, and dique does not mark the prejacent issue as unresolved as zhende
does.
(37)

A:

Zuowan xiayu le.
‘It rained last night.’(B has no idea if it rained last night, but B always believes in what A says.)
B: #Zhende, xiayu le.
‘Really, it rained.’

Zhende makes the same semantic contribution in a question. That is, some participant y
has provided an answer to the issue I , but that the speaker of zhende(I ) believes this answer
does not resolve I .9 As in (31), Mrs. Li believes that Xiaoli’s answer does not resolve thequestion asked by Mr. Li. If Mrs. Li believed that Xiaoli’s answer resolved the question, asin (38), the use of zhende would be unacceptable.
(38)

Context: Mr. and Mrs. Li just had a meeting with their son Xiaoli’s teacher. The
couple are talking with Xiaoli:
Mr. Li: Shang zhouwu ni qu nali le?
‘Where did you go last Friday?’
Xiaoli: Wo qu dianyingyuan le.
‘I went to a cinema.’

9 The use of zhende indicates that the speaker believes that y’s answer does not resolve I. It does notnecessarily indicate that the speaker believes that y’s answer is false. As in (i), C’s answer can be true, i.e.,the company is indeed full of beauties. B knows that C’s assertion is true, but B believes that this assertion
does not resolve A’s issue.

(i)Context: A and B (both female) are talking with a new colleague C (male).
A: Ni hen youxiu. Weishenme lai zhe ge xiao gongsi?
‘You are excellent. Why did you come to this small company?’
C: Zheli daochu dou shi nimen zheyang de meinu.
‘This company is full of beauties like you.’
B: Bie kaiwanxiao. Zhende, weishenme lai zheli?
‘Don’t be kidding. Really, why did you come here?’Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende

13

Mrs. Li: Mingbai le. #Zhende, ni qu nali le?
‘I see. Really, where did you go?’In addition to the contributions of dique, then, zhende makes the further contribution to
the discourse that its prejacent issue has been unresolved.
2.2.3 Comparison with previous studies
Previous studies do not treat dique and zhende as discourse items, but as modality adverbs
that express the speaker’s certainty or affirmation (Zhang, 2000: 45; Qi, 2002: 226). It wasargued that dique and zhende in (39-a) and (39-b) both express the speaker’s high level ofcertainty about the truth of p ‘Li went abroad’.
(39)

a.
b.

Dique, Li chuguo le.
‘Indeed, Li went abroad.’
Zhende, Li chuguo le.
‘Really, Li went abroad.’This analysis seems to be consistent with native speakers’ intuition in assertions, but it
makes wrong predictions for other speech acts. Neither dique nor zhende in (40) conveys
the speaker’s certainty or affirmation.
(40)

Zhende/Dique, Ni shang zhouwu qu nali le?
really/indeed you last Friday go where PERF
‘Really, where did you go last Friday?’/‘Indeed, where did you go last Friday?’In order to precisely characterize the meanings of dique and zhende, we should focus
on the discourse effect caused by dique/zhende and the interaction between the sentence
containing these adverbs and the previous discourse, rather than the meaning of the sentenceout of context. Our study reveals that dique and zhende are not modality adverbs, but
discourse markers that contribute to discourse updates. What dique and zhende do is toconnect the current utterance to the previous one. More specifically, dique indicates that thecurrent issue is an old issue and zhende indicates that it’s old and unresolved. The meaning ofcertainty/affirmation is not the contribution of dique/zhende, but a pragmatic effect resulting
from the combination of the assertion meaning and the semantic contributions made bydique/zhende. As will be shown in Section 3, we employ Farkas & Bruce’s (2010) modelof discourse updates in the formal analysis of dique and zhende, since these two discourse
markers contribute to discourse updates.
2.2.4 Section summary
The discourse markers zhende and dique both indicate that their prejacent issues are old.
Zhende additionally indiciates that its prejacent issue is unresolved to some discourse
participant.10 When the prejacent issue is old and unresolved, the use of zhende is preferred
to dique, which is exactly what the principle of MAXIMIZE PRESUPPOSITION (Heim 1991)
predicts, as will be explained in Section 4. Previous studies have treated dique and zhende
as modality adverbs, which has ignored the discourse effects caused by dique/zhende
10 These two discourse markers make the same contributions in another speech act, i.e., commands, as
they do in assertions and questions. See Yuan (2015: 208-211) for the discussion of the interaction between
dique/zhende and commands.

14

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Haraand makes wrong predictions regarding their distributions. The current study, in contrast,
analyzes dique and zhende as discourse markers that contribute to discourse updates.

2.3 Naturalness rating experiment
The previous sections concluded that dique and zhende make semantic contributions to
the discourse. Their contributions are not the same but there are also overlaps. In order tovalidate these conclusions, this section reports a naturalness rating experiment on assertions
containing dique and zhende (See Schütze (1996) and Cowart (1997) for why such an
experiment can validate the conclusions).
Based on the observations made in Section 2.1 and Section 2.2, we hypothesize thatan assertion containing dique, i.e., dique(p), is used in the context in which p has beensuggested, whereas zhende(p) is used in the context where p has been suggested and someparticipant is uncommitted to p. Based on this hypothesis, we make the predictions in (41),which will be tested in the experiment.
(41)

Predictions:a. Dique(p) is judged to be more natural in a context where p has been suggested
than in a context where p has not been suggested.
b. Zhende(p) is judged to be more natural in a context where p has been suggested
and some participant is uncommitted to p, than in a context where p has notbeen suggested.
c. Zhende(p) is judged to be more natural in a context where p has been suggested
and some participant is uncommitted to p, than in a context where p has beensuggested and all participants are committed to p.

Method In this experiment, the participants judged the naturalness of assertions containing
dique/zhende in different contexts. For dique, each stimulus consists of a context and atarget sentence, i.e., an assertion containing dique. There are two conditions in this part ofthe experiment, suggested and unsuggested. Each condition has 10 items, and thus 20 target
stimuli were created. A suggested context refers to a context where the prejacent of dique has
been suggested, while an unsuggested context is where the prejacent has not been suggested
before. As in (42), the proposition p ‘Xiaolan went out to jog’ has not been suggested in theunsuggested context, but has been suggested by Mr. Lan in the suggested context. According
to the predictions in (41), the target sentence Dique, Xiaolan qu paobu le in the suggested
context should be judged more natural than in the unsuggested context.
(42)

Target Sentence: Dique, Xiaolan qu paobu le. ‘Indeed, Xiaolan went out to jog.’
a. Unsuggested Context: Mr. Lan arrives home and finds that his son Xiaolan is
not at home. Mrs. Lan tells Mr. Lan:b. Suggested Context: Mr. Lan arrives home and finds that his son Xiaolan is not
at home. He sees that Xiaolan’s sneakers are not on the shoe rack, so he says
to Mrs. Lan: ‘I suppose Xiaolan went out to jog?’. Mrs. Lan answers:

As for zhende, each stimulus also consists of a context and a target sentence, i.e.,
an assertion containing zhende. In this part of the experiment, there are three conditions:unsuggested, suggested and agreed, and suggested and challenged. Each condition has 10
items, and thus 30 target stimuli were created. A suggested and agreed context refers to a

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende

15

context where the prejacent of zhende has been suggested and all the discourse participants
are committed to it, while a suggested and challenged context is where the prejacent has
been suggested but not all the participants accept it. As in (43), the proposition p ‘There wasan earthquake last night’ has not been suggested in the unsuggested context. In the suggested
and agreed context, p has been suggested by A and all discourse participants are committed
to p. In the suggested and challenged context, p has been suggested by A’s roommate and
A is uncommitted to p. According to the predictions in (41), the target sentence Zhende,
zuowan dizhen le in the suggested and challenged context should be judged more naturalthan in the other two contexts.
(43)

Target Sentence: Zhende, zuowan dizhen le. ‘Really, there was an earthquake lastnight.’
a. Unsuggested Context: Waking up in the morning, A’s roommate says to A:
b. Suggested and agreed Context: Waking up in the morning, A tells his
roommate ‘There was an earthquake last night.’ A’s roommate also felt theearthquake and says:c. Suggested and challenged Context: Waking up in the morning, A’s roommate
tells A ‘There was an earthquake last night.’ A doesn’t believe it and says ‘Are
you sure? I didn’t feel anything.’ A’s roommate says to A:

Thus, 50 stimuli (20 of dique and 30 of zhende) and 50 fillers were added to theexperiment. The 50 stimuli and 50 fillers, all in Chinese characters, were presented tothe participants in an anonymous questionnaire in Qualtrics.11 The questionnaire wasorganized into ten blocks, each block containing 5 stimuli and 5 fillers. The order ofthe 10 items within each block was pseudo-randomized by Qualtrics, ensuring that no
minimal pair stimuli appeared together. Each participant completed the questionnaire on alaptop, accompanied by an assistant. The participants were required to judge how natural
the target sentences were in the contexts by ticking the numbers on a 5-point Likert
scale: completely natural, somewhat natural, undecidable, somewhat unnatural, completely
unnatural. 20 native Mandarin speakers, 10 male and 10 female, were each paid 80 Hong
Kong dollars to participate in the experiment. The ratings were converted to numericalvalues as follows: completely natural=5, somewhat natural=4, undecidable=3, somewhat
unnatural=2, completely unnatural=1. Differences among the average ratings were analyzed
by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by the Student-Newman-Keuls test in
the statistical software package SPSS (IBM 2011). A value of p < 0.05 was considered
statistically significant.
Results The average naturalness ratings of the 10 assertions containing dique are presented
in Figure 1. Native speakers judged dique(p) in the context where p has been suggested asmuch more natural than in the context where p has not been suggested (suggested context =4.31, unsuggested context = 1.65, SSgroup = 35.38, SSerror = 3.12, df group = 1, df error =18, F = 204.17, p < .001). The error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
As presented in Figure 2, the average ratings of the 10 assertions modified by zhendein the three contexts are significantly different (suggested and challenged context = 4.79,
suggested and agreed context = 2.51, unsuggested context = 1.825, SSgroup = 48.2, SSerror= 4.2, df group = 2, df error = 27, F = 154.94, p < .001). Student-Newman-Keuls test showsthat native speakers judged zhende(p) as more natural in the context where p has been
11 Qualtrics is a web-based system that conducts online surveys. Version 45634 of the Qualtrics ResearchcSuite. Copyright⃝2013
Qualtrics. http://www.qualtrics.com.

16

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

Fig. 1 Average ratings of assertions modified by diquesuggested but not all discourse participants were committed to it, than in the context where
p has not been suggested at all (p < .05). Furthermore, native speakers judged zhende(p) as
more natural in the context where a discourse participant remained uncommitted to p afterp has been suggested, than in the context where all participants accepted p (p < .05). The
error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.

Fig. 2 Average naturalness ratings of assertions modified by zhende

The results support the predictions in (41) about the semantics of dique and zhende.12
12 In this experiment, each participant has seen all target sentences in all kinds of contexts. Hiramatsu(1998) and Snyder (2000) point out that acceptability ratings may be influenced by repeated exposure. The
current results can and should be replicated in a follow-up experiment in which separate experimental lists
are constructed according to a Latin Square-design, such that each list contains an equal amount of target
sentences per context, and each list is judged by an equal number of participants.

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende17

2.4 Section Summary
This section provided empirical characterizations of the distributions and interpretationsof dique and zhende. On the basis of introspection-based data and a naturalness rating
experiment, we show that dique contributes to the update of discourse by indicating thatits prejacent is an old issue, while zhende indicates that its prejacent is an old issue but
remains unresolved.

3 Formal analysis of dique and zhende
Section 2 showed that dique and zhende make different semantic contributions using
empirical data. In this section, we propose that dique and zhende are presupposition triggers
and provide formal definitions of these discourse markers which capture how they connect
the utterances in the discourse. Our analysis is built on the update semantics proposed by
Farkas & Bruce (2010). Farkas & Bruce (2010) model the context-change effects of various
speech acts and provide a uniform treatment for assertions and questions. Since dique andzhende contribute to the update of discourse and mark the same discourse effect whether
they modify assertions or questions, Farkas & Bruces (2010) model is suitable to describe
the distribution and interpretation of dique and zhende. We first introduce the theoreticalbackground for our proposal in Section 3.1, and then formalize the presuppositions ofdique and zhende in Section 3.2. Section 3.3 shows how the analysis of Mandarin discourse
markers offers support for the framework of Farkas & Bruce (2010).

3.1 Theoretical background
Before presenting the definitions of dique/zhende in assertions and questions, we needto know how assertions and questions are interpreted. The interpretations of assertions
and questions are built upon the notions of the Common Ground (Stalnaker 1978), thepublic belief (Gunlogson 2001), the Table (Farkas & Bruce 2010) and the projected set(Farkas & Bruce 2010) in our study. Assertions and questions are both characterized ascontributing to the Table stack and the projected set in Farkas & Bruce (2010), and hence
adopting the model of Farkas & Bruce (2010) allows us to unify the semantics of the
discourse markers in assertion and questions. Dique and zhende convey information about
how the current utterance is related to the previous discourse, and thus we will propose ananalysis of these markers as presuppositions triggers. To pave the way for later discussions,
we also introduce the definition of presupposition.
Common Ground and Public Belief In the possible-worlds model of Stalnaker (1978),the Common Ground (hereafter, CG) represents all the mutual beliefs of the discourse
participants in the discourse, and it is characterized as a set of propositions:(44)

The Common Ground is a set of propositions representing the common beliefs ofall the discourse participants.
(Summarized from Stalnaker 1978: 321)

The context set is then construed as a set of possible worlds in which all the propositionsin the CG are true. In this model, an assertion uttered by any discourse participant acts
as a proposal to change the CG. Gunlogson (2001: 41-43) decomposes the CG into eachparticipant’s public beliefs. Each participant is associated with a set of propositions that are18

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Harataken as their public beliefs. In a discourse where A and B are the participants, a proposition
p is a public belief of the participant A if and only if ‘A believes p’ is a mutual belief of A
and B. The CG in a certain context C is then taken to be the intersection of the public beliefsof the participants in that context, i.e., CG(C) = PBA (C) ∩ PBB (C).

QUD, the Table and the projected set In order to interpret the meaning of questions, Roberts(1996) extends the model of Stalnaker (1978) by proposing a set of questions called theQuestion Under Discussion (QUD). The QUD is a set of questions representing contextuallysalient issues and it is temporarily ordered. Questions indicate an update in the QUD, while
assertions indicate an update in the CG.
(45)

The QUD is an ordered set of questions representing contextually salient issues.
(Summarized from Roberts 1996: 93)

Farkas & Bruce (2010) point out that question and assertion share a similarity that has notreceived enough attention before. A question raises an issue and brings this issue into thediscussion, and so does an assertion. Anne’s assertion in (46) and her question in (47) bothraise the issue of Sam’s whereabouts. We see that the same issue is raised because theaddressee Ben can respond to Anne’s assertion and her question with the same reaction(either a positive or a negative reaction). The difference is that the assertion in (46) commits
Anne to the proposition ‘Sam is home’, while the question in (47) does not.
(46)
(47)

Anne: Sam is home.
Ben: Yes/Yeah, he’s home./No, he isn’t home.

(Farkas & Bruce 2010: 83)

Anne: Is Sam home?
Ben: Yes/Yeah, he’s home./No, he isn’t home.

(Farkas & Bruce 2010: 83)

In order to capture the similarities and differences between assertions and questions,
Farkas & Bruce (2010) present a model of context structure that contains a discourse
component called ‘the Table’, which is a stack of issues under discussion. The issue at the
topmost layer of the Table stack is the issue that was most recently posed, and it is also themost immediate issue under discussion. Here, we represent the Table stack T as an orderedpair, either empty or consisting of an issue and a Table, as defined in (48).13 An issue is aset of propositions, of type ⟨⟨s, t⟩, t⟩.
(48)

Let I be an issue, a set of propositions.
a. ⟨ ⟩ is a Table.
b. If I is an issue and T is a Table, then ⟨I , T⟩ is a Table.
c. Nothing else is a Table.
d. If T is a Table, then T[n] is the nth element in the Table (counting from 0 at
the top).

13 See Farkas & Bruce (2010: 86-87) for the original definition of the Table stack. Farkas & Bruce (2010)
assume that the items on the Table are syntactic objects paired with their denotations. For example, after
Anne’s assertion in (46), the syntactic structure (i.e., ‘Sam is home’[D], ‘D’ for the sentential feature ofdeclaratives) and its denotation (i.e., the set {p}, p = ‘Sam is home’) are both added onto the Table. Having
syntactic forms available in discourse together with semantic contents allows conversational moves to haveaccess to both of them. For simplicity, the definition in (48) omits the syntactic structure and hence only thedenotation (i.e., an issue I) is added onto the Table. See also Isaacs & Rawlins (2008) who make use of thenotion of stack to model a context.

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende

19

Farkas & Bruce (2010) also define two stack operations ‘push’ and ‘remove’ to model theoperation of the Table. ‘push(I , T)’ represents the new stack obtained by adding the issue I
to the top of the stack T, as defined in (49) on the basis of (48).
(49)

For any issue I and Table T:push(I , T) = ⟨I , T⟩

For example, the Table T ⟨I ′ , ⟨⟩⟩ has the issue I ′ on its topmost layer, as in (50-a). The push
operation adds the issue I onto the top of T, and hence in the output Table, the issue I is the
topmost element in push(I , T) (= ⟨I, ⟨I ′ , ⟨⟩⟩⟩), as in (50-b).
(50)

a.

T:

b.

push(I , T):

T[0]
T[0]
T[1]

I′
I
I′

In contrast, ‘remove(I , T)’ represents the stack obtained by removing the topmost
occurrence of I from the Table stack:(51)

For any issue I and Table T:
remove(I , ⟨I , T⟩) = T.

The original Table T ⟨I, ⟨I ′ , ⟨⟩⟩⟩ has the issue I on its topmost layer, as in (52-a). The
remove operation removes the issue I from T, and hence the topmost element of the updated
Table remove(I , T) (represented as ⟨I ′ , ⟨⟩⟩) becomes I ′ , as in (52-b).
(52)

a.

T:

b.

remove(I , T) :

T[0]
T[1]
T[0]

I
I′
I′

Initiating a conversational move, such as initiating an assertion move or a question move,
will add the denotation of the assertion/question onto the Table. When the Table is not empty,
the immediate goal of the conversation is to resolve the issue and empty the Table. An issue
I is resolved and removed from the Table stack if and only if one proposition in the set I
enters the CG, as shown in (53). Here, Co represents the output context while Ci represents
the input context.
(53)

T(Co ) = remove(I , T(Ci )) iff T(Ci )[0] = I and ∃p.(p ∈ I ) ∧ (p ∈ CG(Ci )).
(Modified from Farkas & Bruce 2010: 99)

Besides comparing between an assertion move and a question move, Farkas & Bruce (2010)
also discuss the similarities and differences between reactions to assertions and reactions toquestions. As shown in (46) and (47), both the assertion and the question can be respondedby ‘yes’ and ‘no’. However, the contextual effects of the negative reaction ‘no’ in (46) and(47) are different. Ben’s negative reaction in (46) creates a conversational crisis, because
after Ben’s negative reaction, the issue of Sam’s whereabouts cannot be resolved until either
Ben or Anne retracts a commitment. In contrast, Ben’s negative reaction in (47) does notcreate such a crisis. Anne can accept either one of Ben’s responses in (47) and then theissue is resolved. In other words, the negative reaction to an assertion is more marked thanthe positive reaction to an assertion, whereas both the positive and negative reaction to aquestion are unmarked.
In order to account for the differences between the reactions to assertions and questions,
Farkas & Bruce (2010) propose that a conversational move that places an item on the Table

20

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

simultaneously projects a set of future common grounds, called the ‘projected set’ (PS). PS
is a set of future common grounds that reflects canonical ways of resolving the issue on
the Table, and each future common ground is a superset of the current common ground. An
assertion projects confirmation in that it projects a future common ground that includes theasserted proposition. A question projects resolution in that it projects a set of future common
grounds, each of which includes a possible answer to the question. As defined in (54), the¯ P creates a new collection of sets of propositions, and each new set is created
operation PS ∪by adding one proposition in P to an existing CGi . If the operation yields an inconsistent set,
it will be eliminated. An inconsistent set is defined as in (55). That is, a set of propositions
is inconsistent if the propositions in the set cannot be simultaneously all true. Otherwise, it
is consistent. We will show how (54) works in defining assertions and questions.
(54)

Definition of PS:
Let PS = {CG1 , ..., CGn } be a collection of sets of propositions (e.g. possible
common grounds) and let P = {p1 , ..., pm } be a set of propositions.
′′¯ P = {CGi ∪ {pj }| 1 < i < n; 1 < j < m} − {CG |CG is inconsistent}.
PS ∪(Farkas & Bruce 2010: 90)(55)

A set of propositions {p1 , p2 , ..., pm } is inconsistent if and only if p1 ∧ p2 ∧ ... ∧pm is a contradiction.

In this framework, an assertion is defined in (57) on the basis of (56). The function ‘+’ is the
update function which adds a proposition into a set of propositions, as defined in (56). The
assertive operator ASSERT takes in a proposition and returns a context change potential (i.e.,
CCP , a function from input contexts C i to output contexts C o , see Heim, 1982). The output
context PBX (C) + p resembles the input context C in every respect, except that PBX (C) +p contains p.
(56)
(57)

PBSpkr (C) + p = PBSpkr (C) ∪ {p}ASSERT (p)( C i ) = C o such that:

a.
b.
c.

PBSpkr (Co ) = PBSpkr (Ci ) + p
T(Co ) = push({p}, T(Ci ))¯ {p} = {CG(Ci ) ∪ {p}}PS ( C o ) = PS ( C i ) ∪(Modified from Farkas & Bruce 2010: 92)

According to (57), a default assertion changes the context in three ways. First, it adds the
propositional content of the assertion into the speaker’s public beliefs (PBSpkr (Ci ) + p),(57-a). Second, it adds its propositional content (represented as a singleton set {p}) onto
the top of the Table, (57-b). Third, confirmation is projected by adding p to each element of
the input PS. The input PS only contains one element, i.e., the initial CG at the start of theconversation CG(Ci ), and hence the updated PS contains only one future common groundwhich includes the asserted proposition p. For example, Anne’s assertion in (46) adds the
proposition p ‘Sam is home’ into Anne’s public beliefs, puts the issue {p} onto the top of
the Table, and adds p to the initial CG contained in the PS.
The change in (57-a) applies to both a default assertion and an assertion that acts
as a confirmation of a previous assertion. The other two changes in (57-b) and (57-c)
are redundant for an assertion that confirms a previous assertion. For example, when theaddressee uses an assertion to confirm a previous assertion made by the speaker, theaddressee simply commits himself to the content of the assertion without raising any newissue or making any change to the PS. For example, Ben’s assertion Yes/Yeah, he’s home inGuiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende21(46) only adds the proposition p ‘Sam is home’ into the public beliefs of Ben. According
to (53), since all the discourse participants (i.e., Anne and Ben) have p in their publicbeliefs (p ∈ (PBAnne (Ci ) ∩ PBBen (Ci )), p enters the CG (p ∈ CG(Ci )) and the issue {p} isresolved and removed from the Table (T(Co ) = remove({p}, T(Ci ))). Confirmation is thedefault reaction to an assertion because it reaches the CG projected by the assertion and thus
canonically resolved the issue raised.
If Ben remains uncommitted to p after Anne’s assertion, for example, if Ben says ‘No’,‘Maybe no’ or ‘I don’t think so’, the issue {p} is not resolved. Ben’s assertion adds aninconsistent proposition p′ (p′ can be ¬p, ⋄¬p, etc.) to the existing CG in the PS, and hence
the PS after Ben’s assertion is a set {CG(Ci ) ∪ {p} ∪ {p′ }}. Since p and p′ cannot be
simultaneously true, the future common ground CG(Ci ) ∪ {p} ∪ {p′ } is inconsistent andis hence discarded following (54). Thus, the PS becomes an empty set if one discourse
participant proposed to add p to the CG while the other participant refused this proposal.
The issue remains on the top of the Table and requires further discussion.14
Like assertions, questions raise new issues and update the PS, but they do not change
discourse participants’ commitments. Farkas & Bruce (2010) define the question operator Q
as in (58), where Q is a set of propositions that count as possible answers to the question.
(58) says that when a question Q is asked, the Hamblin-set of propositions Q has been added
onto the top of the Table and each proposition in Q is added to the existing CG in the PS.
For example, if Q denotes a set of {p, q}, then the updated Table has the issue {p, q} on
its top level and the updated projected set contains two future CGs, each of which includes¯ {p, q} = {CG(Ci ) ∪ {p}, CG(Ci ) ∪ {q}}). If theone proposition in Q (PS(Co ) = PS(Ci ) ∪addressee provides a complete direct answer to the question and the speaker accepts thisanswer, the CG of the conversation becomes equivalent to one of the future CGs in the PS
and then the question is removed from the Table.
(58)

Q (Q)( C i ) = C o such that:a.
b.

T(Co ) = push(Q, T(Ci ))¯Q
PS ( C o ) = PS ( C i ) ∪(Modified from Farkas & Bruce 2010: 95)

One difference between question and assertion is that a question adds a non-singleton setof propositions onto the Table and projects a non-singleton set of resolutions, while anassertion adds a singleton set onto the Table and projects one default resolution of theissue. Farkas & Bruce (2010) reconceptualize the QUD (Roberts 1996) as the Table in thedefinition of questions, because the notion of the Table can apply to both assertions andquestions. The term ‘QUD’ is limited to the definition of questions and hence will not be
used in the rest of this paper.
As can be seen, the PS characterizes how an issue can be canonically resolved. Whenthe addressee accepts the speaker’s assertion, or when the addressee answers the speaker’squestion, the CG becomes equivalent to one of the future CGs in the PS and the issue
is resolved. In contrast, when the addressee refuses the speaker’s assertion, or when
the addressee fails to answer the speaker’s question, the PS becomes empty because ofinconsistent future CGs and the issue is unresolved. That is, the introduction of PS enables
one to characterize how the addressee has failed to resolve an old issue. Since the adverb
14 See Cohen & Krifka (2014) and Krifka (2015, 2017) for a similar theory of speech acts that models boththe current CG and its projected continuation. Their framework characterizes various reactions to different
speech acts, e.g., acceptance and rejection of assertions or questions, based on the notion of commitment
states and commitment spaces.

22

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Harazhende indicates that its prejacent issue is unresolved, the PS will be adopted to formalize
the semantics of zhende in Section 3.2.2.
To summarize, Farkas & Bruce (2010) provide a unified analysis of assertions andquestions by proposing that both assertions and questions add their contents onto the Tableand update the projected set. We will adopt their analysis in Section 3.2 in order to unify thesemantics of the discourse markers in assertions and questions.
Presupposition We need to introduce another notion before presenting the definitions ofdique and zhende, that is, the notion of presupposition. As we have shown above, anutterance like an assertion or a question denotes an update of the context. Presuppositions
are thus regarded as preconditions on the context. This means that a presupposition mustbe evaluated in a context that already entails this presupposition. Karttunen (1974) proposesthat presuppositions need to be entailed by the local context, as in (59):(59)

Context X satisfies the presupposition of S just in case the presuppositions of eachof the constituent sentences in S are satisfied by the local context.
(Karttunen 1974: 187)

In order to formalize (59), we employ a binary presupposition operator ‘⟨ ⟩ ’ fromBeaver & Krahmer (2001), which is called transplication.
(60)

If ϕ, π are formulae, then ϕ⟨π⟩ is a formula.
(Beaver & Krahmer 2001: 150)

In (60), π is a presupposition of ϕ. Beaver & Krahmer (2001) provide a truth-conditional
definition for transplication. That is, Jϕ⟨π⟩ K is defined only if π is true. Here, we redefine
transplication in the dynamic semantics framework:(61)

Jϕ⟨π⟩ K is defined iff JπK is satisfied in the local context.

In Section 3.2, transplication is adopted to characterize the presuppositions of dique andzhende.
Summary This section illustrated the formal concepts of the Common Ground, the publicbelief, the Table, the projected set and presupposition. The semantic analysis of assertion andquestion in Farkas & Bruce (2010) will be adopted in the following analysis of dique andzhende, because it allows us to capture how the discourse markers contribute to the updateof discourse and unify the semantics of the discourse markers in assertion and question.

3.2 Formal definitions of dique and zhende
In Section 2, we observed that the discourse marker dique marks its prejacent issue asold, whereas zhende marks its prejacent issue as old and not resolved. In this section, we
formalize this observation and explain the distribution of dique and zhende.
3.2.1 Formal definition of diqueThe discourse marker dique marks its prejacent as an old issue. In other words, the use ofdique presupposes that the prejacent issue is old.

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende23

We formalize this presuppositional nature of dique in (62) using transplication as definedin (61) above. (62-a) is for the case when dique is used in an assertion, while (62-b) is forthe case of a question. Let us take a look at (62-a) first. The semantics of dique consistsof two parts. The first part says that the combination of dique with a proposition α and aforce head F denotes F (α). If dique combines with a certain proposition p and the assertive
force head ASSERT, the resulting formula will be (λα.λF.λC.F (α)(C))(p)(ASSERT) =λC.ASSERT(p)(C) = ASSERT(p). This formula says that an assertion modified by dique has
the same assertive component as a bare assertion, i.e., both denote an update of the speaker’s
public beliefs with p and an update of the Table and the PS. The second part is the formulawithin the angle brackets. According to the definition in (61), the formula T(C)[0] = {α}says that the content of the presupposition is that the singleton set of a proposition {α} ison the top of the Table. That is, dique presupposes that the singleton set {α} is on the top of
the Table. (62-b) says that dique presupposes that α, which is a set of propositions, is on the
top of the Table.
(62)

The semantics of dique:a. JdiqueK = λα.λF.λC.F (α)(C)⟨T(C)[0]={α}⟩ if α is of type ⟨s, t⟩.
b. JdiqueK = λα.λF.λC.F (α)(C)⟨T(C)[0]=α⟩ if α is of type ⟨⟨s, t⟩, t⟩.

Let us see how (62) implements the informal generalizations of the semantic contribution
made by dique. First, we illustrate how (62-a) works with (4), repeated here as (63).
(63)

A:
B:

Li chuguo le.
‘Li went abroad.’
Dique, ta chuguo le.
‘Indeed, he went abroad.’

A and B have made two utterances in (63), so we can consider two context change potentials.
Let us see how each utterance changes the state of the context. The initial context is C0 . As
depicted in (64), C0 is a context in which: 1) the proposition p ‘Li went abroad’ is not in the
public beliefs of A (p ̸∈ PBA (C0 )); 2) p is not in the public beliefs of B (p ̸∈ PBB (C0 )), 3)
the issue {p} is not in the Table (since T(C0 ) = ⟨ ⟩), and 4) the PS includes only CG(C0 ), theinitial CG at the start of the conversation. ‘{...}’ in (64) represents the fact that there could
be some propositions in PB(C0 ) and CG(C0 ) other than p.
(64)

C0 :

PBA (C0 ){...}T(C0 ):PBB (C0 )PS ( C 0 ):{...}CG ( C 0 ){...}{CG(C0 )}A’s utterance ‘Li went abroad’ updates the context C0 and the updated context is C1 , asshown in (65). As defined in (57), the participant A’s assertion, ASSERT(p)(C0 ), updates thecontext C0 by adding p into A’s public beliefs (PBA (C1 ) = PBA (C0 ) + p), putting the issue{p} onto the top of the Table (T(C1 ) = push ({p}, T(C0 )) and projecting confirmation byadding p to the initial CG in the input PS. The Table T(C1 ) can be represented as ⟨{p}, ⟨ ⟩⟩.
(65)

C1 :

PBA (C1 ){p, ...}PBB (C1 ){...}CG ( C 1 )

{...}

24

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

T(C1 ):

T(C1 )[0]{p}PS ( C 1 ):{CG(C0 ) ∪ {p}}The context C1 is then updated by B’s utterance and becomes the context C2 , as in (66).
(66)

C2 :

PBA (C2 )T(C2 ):{p, ...}PBB (C2 )PS ( C 2 ):{p, ...}CG ( C 2 ){p, ...}{CG(C0 ) ∪ {p}}B uses dique, which triggers a presupposition that the issue {p} is on the top of theTable. Following the definition of presupposition in (61), B’s assertion is defined only if
the presupposition T(C)[0] = {p} is satisfied in the local context. Since dique occurs in
the matrix clause, the presupposition triggered by dique is regarded as a requirement on theutterance context. In other words, the presupposition triggered by dique should be evaluatedand satisfied in the context set of the context C1 . This amounts to saying that B’s assertionis defined only if all of the discourse participants share the belief that the issue {p} has been
added onto the top of the Table in the context C1 . Because of A’s assertion, the issue {p}is added onto the top of the Table in the context C1 ({p} = T(C1 )[0]) and every discourse
participant shares this belief, and hence the presupposition triggered by dique is satisfied.
Once the presupposition is satisfied, B’s assertion is defined. When the issue {p} is alreadyon the top of the Table, an assertion of p acts as a confirmation of a previous assertion andonly updates the speaker’s public beliefs. Hence, B’s assertion updates B’s public beliefs
with p (PBB (C2 ) = PBB (C1 ) + p). Since both participants are committed to p, p is added
into the CG in the context C2 and hence the issue {p} is resolved and removed from theTable.
As discussed in Section 2.1.1, an assertion containing dique is also felicitous as a
response to an assertion containing epistemic modal adverbs such as keneng and yexu
‘probably’:
(67)

A:
B:

Li keneng chuguo le.
‘Li probably went abroad.’
Dique, ta chuguo le.
‘Indeed, he went abroad.’

In (67), A has expressed his bias towards p ‘Li went abroad’ and hence has brought this issue
into the current discussion. We speculate that A’s statement has at least two dimensions of
meaning. The first dimension is that A believes that p is true in some possible worlds, and thesecond is that A has added the issue {p} onto the top of the Table. Since the presupposition
triggered by dique is satisfied by A’s statement, the use of dique is felicitous.
Now, let us see how the definition in (62-b) captures the contribution of dique inquestions. Take (24), repeated here as (68), as an example.
(68)

Context: Mr. Li and Mrs. Li just had a meeting with their son Xiaoli’s teacher. The
couple are talking with Xiaoli:
Mr. Li: Shang zhouwu ni qu nali le?
‘Where did you go last Friday?’Mrs. Li: Dique, qu nali le?
‘Indeed, where did you go?’

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende25

A and B have made two utterances in (68). The question I Shang zhouwu ni qu nalile? ‘Where did you go last Friday?’ uttered by Mr. Li denotes a set which contains all the
propositions of the form ‘Xiaoli goes to x last Friday’, where x is a place where Xiaoli cango. For simplicity, we define this question as a set containing n possible answers {p1 , p2 , ...,pn }. The initial context C0 is a context where the question {p1 , p2 , ..., pn } is not in the Table(since T(C0 ) = ⟨ ⟩). Mr. Li asks the question ‘Where did you go last Friday?’, which adds
this question onto the top of the Table in the context C1 , i.e., T(C1 )[0] = {p1 , p2 , ..., pn },and adds each possible answer to the existing CG in the PS.
(69)

C1 :

{p1 , p2 , ..., pn }T(C1 ):

T(C1 )[0]PS ( C 1 ):{CG(C0 ) ∪ {p1 }, CG(C0 ) ∪ {p2 }, ...CG(C0 ) ∪ {pn }}Mrs. Li’s use of dique presupposes that the issue {p1 , p2 , ..., pn } is already on the
top of the Table. Since this presupposition is satisfied in the context C1 , the use of dique isfelicitous and Mrs. Li’s question also adds {p1 , p2 , ..., pn } onto the topmost layer of theTable (T(C2 ) = push ({p1 , p2 , ..., pn }, T(C1 )), as in (70). That is, both Mr. Li and Mrs.
Li are committed to seeking an answer to this question in the context C2 . This accounts forthe intuition that questions containing dique indicate the speaker’s confirmation of the oldquestion and the speaker’s agreement with the intention of the previous asker.
(70)

C2 :

{p1 , p2 , ..., pn }T(C2 ):

T(C2 )[0]PS ( C 2 ):{CG(C0 ) ∪ {p1 }, CG(C0 ) ∪ {p2 }, ...CG(C0 ) ∪ {pn }}In a nutshell, dique triggers a presupposition that its prejacent issue has been put onto
the top of the Table.

3.2.2 Formal definition of zhende
The discourse marker zhende marks its prejacent issue as old and unresolved. In other words,
zhende presupposes that its prejacent issue is old and that some participant y has failed
to resolve this issue, as formalized in (71). (71-a) says that zhende in an assertion of αpresupposes that the issue {α} is already on the top of the Table (T(C)[0] = {α}) and thatthe projected set is empty (PS(C) = ∅). As discussed in Section 3.1, when the issue {α} isalready on the top of the Table, it means that α has been suggested by someone x and hence¯ {α} = {CG(C) ∪ {α}}. If some participant y remains
has been added to the PS: PS(C) ∪uncommitted to α after x’s assertion, for example, if y says ‘No’, ‘Maybe no’ or ‘I don’t
think so’, y ’s assertion adds an inconsistent proposition α′ to the PS, and thus the PS after y ’s
assertion is a set {CG(C) ∪ {α} ∪ {α′ }}. Since α and α′ cannot be true simultaneously, thefuture common ground CG(C) ∪ {α} ∪ {α′ } is inconsistent and is hence discarded, and thus
the projected set becomes empty. (71-b) says that zhende in a questioning of α presupposesthat α is on the top of the Table and that the projected set is empty. When the issue α isalready on the top of the Table, it means that the question α has been asked and hence eachpossible answer of α has been added to the existing CG in the PS. If some participant y has

26

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

failed to resolve α, i.e., y has provided an answer that is not an element in α, then the PS
also becomes empty because of inconsistent future common grounds.
(71)

The semantics of zhende:a. JzhendeK = λα.λF.λC.F (α)(C)⟨(T(C)[0]={α})∧(PS(C)=∅)⟩ if α is of type ⟨s, t⟩.
b. JzhendeK = λα.λF.λC.F (α)(C)⟨(T(C)[0]=α)∧(PS(C)=∅)⟩ if α is of type ⟨⟨s, t⟩, t⟩.

(71-a) can be illustrated with the example (30), repeated below as (72).
(72)

A:

Zuowan xiayu le.
‘It rained last night.’
B: Meiyou xiayu.
‘It didn’t rain.’C (to B):Zhende, zuowan xiayu le.
‘Really, it rained last night.’

A, B and C have made three utterances in (72). The initial context is C0 in which theproposition p ‘Li went abroad’ is not in the public beliefs of A or B or C, the issue {p} is
not in the Table and the PS only contains the initial CG. A’s utterance updates the context C0
and the updated context is C1 . In context C1 , A’s assertion of p ‘It rained last night’ updates
the initial context C0 by adding p into A’s public beliefs (PBA (C1 ) =PBA (C0 ) + p), putting
the issue {p} onto the top of the Table (T(C1 ) = push ({p}, T(C0 )), and adding p into the¯ {p} = {CG(C0 ) ∪ {p}}):existing CG in the PS (PS(C1 ) = PS(C0 ) ∪
(73)

C1 :

PBA (C1 ){p, ...}PBC (C1 ){...}T(C1 ):

T(C1 )[0]PBB (C1 )CG ( C 1 )

{p}

{...}
{...}
PS ( C 1 ):{CG(C0 ) ∪ {p}}Then, B’s utterance updates the context C1 and the updated context is C2 , as in (74). B
refuses to believe what A said and commits himself to ¬p. B’s assertion adds an inconsistent¯ {¬p} = {CG(C0 ) ∪ {p} ∪ {¬p}}. Since p andproposition ¬p to the PS, PS(C2 ) = PS(C1 ) ∪¬p are inconsistent, CG(Ci ) ∪ {p} ∪ {¬p} is discarded and PS(C2 ) becomes empty. B has
failed to resolve the issue {p}, and thus the issue remains on the top of the Table and requires
further discussion.
(74)

C2 :

PBA (C2 ){p, ...}PBC (C2 ){...}T(C2 ):

T(C2 )[0]PBB (C2 )CG ( C 2 ){p}{¬p, ...}{...}PS ( C 2 ):∅The context C2 , is then updated by C’s utterance and becomes C3 . C’s use of zhende
presupposes that {p} is on the top of the Table (T(C2 )[0] = {p}) and that some participant
has failed to resolve this issue (PS(C2 ) = ∅). Since these presuppositions are satisfied in
C 2 , zhende is felicitous and C’s assertion indicates an update of C’s public beliefs with p

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende

27(PBC (C3 ) = PBC (C2 ) + p). Since C is committed to p but B is uncommitted to p, theassertion containing zhende expresses that C is emphasizing the truth of p and C is trying toconvince B of p:
(75)

C3 :

PBA (C3 ){p, ...}PBB (C3 ){¬p, ...}PBC (C3 ){p, ...}CG ( C 3 ){...}T(C3 ):

T(C3 )[0]{p}PS ( C 3 ):∅Let us see how (71-b) implements the contributions of zhende in questions by looking
at (76).
(76)

Context: Mr. Li and Mrs. Li just had a meeting with their son Xiaoli’s teacher. The
couple are talking with Xiaoli:
Mr. Li: Shang zhouwu ni qu nali le?
‘Where did you go last Friday?’
Xiaoli: Wo zai xuexiao.
‘I was at school.’Mrs. Li: Women zhidao ni bu zai. Zhende, ni qu nali le?
‘We know that you were not. Really, where did you go?’Suppose that the question I Shang zhouwu ni qu nali le? ‘Where did you go last
Friday?’ is a set containing n possible answers {p1 , p2 , ..., pn }. Mr. Li asks this question,
which adds it onto the top of the Table of the initial context C0 , i.e., T(C1 ) = push({p1 , p2 , ..., pn }, T(C0 )) and adds each possible answer to the existing CG in the PS, i.e.,¯ {p1 , p2 , ..., pn } = {CG(C0 ) ∪ {p1 }, CG(C0 ) ∪ {p2 }, ...CG(C0 ) ∪ {pn }}.
PS ( C 1 ) = PS ( C 0 ) ∪
(77)

C1 :

PBMr.Li (C1 ){...}PBXiaoli (C1 ){...}PBMrs.Li (C1 ){...}{p1 , p2 , ..., pn }T(C1 ):

T(C1 )[0]PS ( C 1 ):{CG(C0 ) ∪ {p1 }, CG(C0 ) ∪ {p2 }, ...CG(C0 ) ∪ {pn }}The participant Xiaoli has committed himself to q ‘I was at school’ in order to answer
the issue I but Mrs. Li believes that q does not resolve I (and q is false). Given that Mrs. Li isasking the issue I and she believes that q does not resolve I, q cannot be a possible answer to
I. In other words, Xiaoli has committed himself to a proposition in the form of ¬p1 ∧ ¬p2 ∧¯ {¬p1 ∧¬p2 ∧ ... ∧¬pn } = {CG(C0 )... ∧ ¬pn , and hence the projected set PS(C2 ) = PS(C1 ) ∪∪ {p1 } ∪ {¬p1 ∧ ¬p2 ∧ ... ∧ ¬pn }, CG(C0 ) ∪ {p2 } ∪ {¬p1 ∧ ¬p2 ∧ ... ∧ ¬pn }, ...CG(C0 )∪ {pn } ∪ {¬p1 ∧ ¬p2 ∧ ... ∧ ¬pn }}. Since every possible CG in the PS is inconsistent andis thus discarded, the PS becomes empty.
(78)

C2 :

PBMr.Li (C2 ){...}PBXiaoli (C2 ){q, ...}

PBMrs.Li (C2 ){¬q, ...}

28

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

T(C2 ):

T(C2 )[0]{p1 , p2 , ..., pn }PS ( C 2 ):∅Mrs. Li’s use of zhende presupposes that I is already on the top of the Table (T(C2 )[0] ={p1 , p2 , ..., pn }) and that it is unresolved (PS(C2 ) = ∅). Since these presuppositions are

satisfied in C2 , the use of zhende is felicitous and Mrs. Li’s question also adds I onto
the Table (T(C3 ) = push ({p1 , p2 , ..., pn }, T(C2 )), as in (79). Since Mrs. Li is seeking
an answer to the issue and Xiaoli has failed to resolve it, the question containing zhende
indicates that Mrs. Li is emphasizing that Xiaoli should truly resolve this issue.
(79)

C3 :

PBMr.Li (C3 )T(C3 ):{...}

T(C3 )[0]PBXiaoli (C3 ){q, ...}{p1 , p2 , ..., pn }{¬q, ...}

PBMrs.Li (C3 )PS ( C 3 ):∅To summarize, zhende triggers a presupposition that its prejacent issue is old and thatsome discourse participant has failed to commit to an answer to this issue.15

3.3 Advantages of Farkas & Bruce’s theory
Section 3.2 provided formal definitions for dique and zhende within the dynamic semantics
framework, in particular, the stack model of the Table in a context proposed by
Farkas & Bruce (2010). This section further motivates the adoption of Farkas & Bruce’s
stack model.
In Section 3.1, we show how Farkas & Bruce (2010) formalize the context-change
effect of the assertion/question speech-act operator. The Table stack model provides a rich
structure in order to define the context-change effects of assertion/question and the discourse
behaviors of these speech acts. This model does not just consider the effect of an utterance
performing a certain speech act in isolation, but also the various reactions to this speechact, such as confirmation and challenge to an assertion. As shown in Section 2, Mandarin
discourse markers dique and zhende are speech act modifiers, which function to connect
the previous speech acts with its reactions and contribute updates in terms of discourse
moves. Therefore, Farkas & Bruce’s (2010) theory that specifies discourse effects of speechacts is more suitable for our concern, compared with an alternative theory like Gunlogson
15 Dique and zhende can either occur at sentence-initial position or VP-initial position. This paper only
discussed dique/zhende at sentence-initial position. Adverbs at these two positions make similar semantic
contributions and both can be analyzed as presupposition triggers. For example, both sentences in (i) indicatethat the proposition ‘Li went abroad’ has been suggested, and both sentences in (ii) indicate that p ‘Li went
abroad’ has been suggested and that some discourse participant remains uncommitted to the truth of p. See
Appendix and Yuan (2015: 109-130) for the discussion of a subtle difference between sentence-initial and
VP-initial dique/zhende.

(i)Dique, ta chuguo le. / Ta dique chuguo le.
Indeed he go-abroad PERF / he indeed go-abroad PERF
‘Indeed, he went abroad.’/‘He indeed went abroad.’(ii)

Zhende, ta chuguo le. / Ta zhende chuguo le.
Really he go-abroad PERF / he really go-abroad PERF
‘Really, he went abroad.’/‘He really went abroad.’Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende29(2001) which concerns more about the meaning of a particular construction, namely arising declarative.16 As shown in Section 3.2, our analysis built within the framework of
Farkas & Bruce (2010) successfully captures how these discourse markers contribute to the
update of discourse.
Another advantage of adopting Farkas & Bruce (2010) is that we can avoid having
two dique’s and zhende’s in the lexicon. As discussed in Section 2, dique is used in bothassertions and questions, and in both speech acts dique indicates that its prejacent is an old
issue. Similarly, zhende indicates that its prejacent is an old issue and not resolved in bothassertions and questions. Since the discourse markers make unified semantic contributions
across different speech acts, we need a formal model of context which provides a unified
treatment of assertions and questions. The hallmark of Farkas & Bruce’s (2010) frameworkis that both assertions and questions add their contents onto the top of the Table stack andupdate the projected set. Thus, dique in both assertions and questions can be defined asindicating that its prejacent has been added onto the top of the Table, while zhende in bothassertions and questions can be defined as indicating that its prejacent has been added onto
the top of the Table and not resolved. In short, the framework of Farkas & Bruce (2010)
allows us to unify the use of the Mandarin adverbs in assertions and questions.
In comparison, frameworks that model assertions and questions using different formal
devices fail to capture the constant contributions of the discourse markers. For example,
if we adopted the models of Gunlogson (2001) and Roberts (1996), dique in assertions
would be defined as indicating that its prejacent proposition has been added into someindividual’s public beliefs, whereas dique in questions would be defined as indicating thatits prejacent question has been added onto the top of the QUD stack. The use of two distinct
formal devices (i.e., public beliefs and the QUD) would miss the core characteristics ofdique as a speech act modifier and be forced to have two distinct definitions for assertions
and questions. Therefore, the framework of Farkas & Bruce (2010) is theoretically more
economical and thus more desirable in the analysis of dique/zhende as well as otherdiscourse markers that have unified semantics in different speech acts.
Furthermore, dique and zhende function to relate the current conversational (i.e.,
linguistic) move to a prior conversational move. This function naturally fits the Table
stack model of Farkas & Bruce (2010) which defines an assertion as a conversational movethat raises an issue under discussion. As discussed in Section 2.1.2, dique indicates thatsome individual x has expressed his bias towards the prejacent proposition p verbally or
linguistically by making an assertion. The use of dique is infelicitous when ‘x is biased
towards p’ is a mere common belief shared by every discourse participant. For example, in(28), repeated here as (80), according to the world knowledge that it is going to rain if thereis thunder and lightning, it is reasonable to assume that B believes in the proposition p ‘Itwill rain’, and thus it is a common belief that B believes in p. However, B did not express
his belief of p explicitly. In this case, the use of dique is infelicitous.
(80)

Context: There is thunder and lightning outside. A says to B:
A: #Dique, yao xiayu le.
indeed will rain PERF
‘Indeed, it will rain.’

16 We would like to thank the editor for reminding us that one of the most important advantages of
employing Farkas & Bruce’s theory (2010) is that it allows us to analyze dique and zhende as lexical items
that affect the discourse updates.

30

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

To our knowledge, other frameworks are incapable of capturing the behavior of dique in(80). For example, if we adopted the model of Gunlogson (2001), where an assertion isdefined as an update of the speaker’ public beliefs, dique would be defined as indicating thatits prejacent proposition has been added into some individual x’s public beliefs. In examples
like (80), given that p ‘It will rain’ is already in B’s public beliefs, this would wrongly predictthat the use of dique is felicitous.
Another possible framework is Potts (2007: 63), which defines the epistemic state of
an individual using a subjective probability distribution P . Yuan & Hara (2012: 628) adopt
this model and define dique as indicating that some individual x’s degree of belief in theprejacent proposition is larger than 0.5. Given that B’s degree of belief in p ‘It will rain’ islarger than 0.5 in (80), this also wrongly predicts that dique is felicitous in (80). In the Table
stack model, in contrast, dique is defined as indicating that its prejacent issue has been added
onto the top of the Table stack. This means that dique is used only when some individual
has made an explicit conversational move (i.e., an assertion) that raises the prejacent issue
under discussion. Given that no assertion has been made before the use of dique in (80), thiscorrectly predicts that the use of dique is not felicitous.
Last but not least, in order to account for the different contextual effects of reactions
to assertions and questions, Farkas & Bruce (2010) present a model of context structurethat contains a novel component, i.e., the projected set, which is indispensable to thecharacterization of the semantics of zhende. As discussed in Section 2, zhende presupposesthat its prejacent issue is old and some discourse participant has failed to resolve thisissue. In the framework of Farkas & Bruce (2010), if one participant has proposed to add
a proposition p into the CG and the other participant has refused to accept this proposal,
the PS becomes empty because of inconsistent future common grounds. Similarly, if one
participant has asked a question and the other participant has failed to resolve it, the PS will
also be empty. Therefore, the semantics of zhende can be defined as presupposing an empty
PS .
Alternative frameworks like Gunlogson (2001) are insufficient in capturing thesemantics of zhende. Yuan (2015: 53) adopts the public belief (Gunlogson 2001) and defineszhende as presupposing that there exists some discourse participant y whose set of publicbeliefs has no intersection with the prejacent issue {α}, i.e., ∃y.{α} ∩ PBy (C) = ∅. This
formal analysis wrongly predicts that C can use zhende immediately after A’s assertion,
before B’s assertion in (81). Suppose that A’s assertion of p ‘It rained last night’ updates
the initial context and the updated context is C1 , as in (82). In C1 , because B hasn’t madeany utterance yet, B’s set of public beliefs has no intersection with the issue {p}. Thus,
the presupposition of zhende is satisfied and C can use zhende in context C1 , which is a
wrong prediction. Similarly, if B says something irrelevant after A’s assertion, for example,
B wasn’t paying attention to A’s utterance and makes a completely irrelevant remark, B’s
set of public beliefs also has no intersection with {p}. Yuan (2015) would again wrongly
predict that the presupposition of zhende is satisfied and C is licensed to utter zhende in this
case.
(81)

A:

Zuowan xiayu le.
‘It rained last night.’
B: Meiyou xiayu.
‘It didn’t rain.’C (to B):Zhende, zuowan xiayu le.
‘Really, it rained last night.’

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende

(82)

31

C1 :

PBA (C1 ){p, ...}PBC (C1 ){...}T(C1 ):

T(C1 )[0]PBB (C1 )CG(C1 )
{p}

{...}
{...}
PS ( C 1 ):{CG(C0 ) ∪ {p}}In contrast, the current formal analysis correctly predicts that C cannot use zhende before
B’s assertion in (81), because the PS in context C1 is not empty. Similarly, C cannot use
zhende after B said something irrelevant, because the adding of an irrelevant proposition
into the CG in PS will not make the CG inconsistent and hence will not turn the PS to an
empty set.17
In short, since dique and zhende contribute to the update of discourse and have constantcontributions in both assertions and questions, the current study offers support for Farkas &Bruce’s (2010) unified model of discourse structure. Furthermore, Farkas & Bruce (2010)
define an assertion as a conversational move, which allows us to formalize how diqueand zhende connect the current conversational move to a prior conversational move. The
adoption of the projected set in their framework enables us to characterize the presuppositionof zhende that its prejacent issue is unresolved.

3.4 Section summary
In this section, we formalized the semantics of dique and zhende within the stack model of
the Table proposed by Farkas & Bruce (2010). Dique presupposes that its prejacent issue
has been added onto the top of the Table. Zhende additionally presupposes that the PS isan empty set. Dique and zhende modify speech acts and mark specific discourse moves,which supports Farkas & Bruce’s (2010) theory of speech acts and discourse moves. Since
assertion and question are treated in a uniform fashion in Farkas & Bruce (2010), we can
avoid having two definitions of each discourse marker in lexicon. Furthermore, dique andzhende connect the current and the previous conversational moves, which backs up Farkas &Bruce’s (2010) theory where an assertion is defined as a conversational move. The projected
set in their framework allows us to capture the unique semantic contribution of zhende.

4 Additional evidence: the principle of M AXIMIZE P RESUPPOSITION
Section 3 analyzed dique and zhende as presupposition triggers, and concluded thatzhende triggers a more informative presupposition than dique. Following the principle of
M AXIMIZE P RESUPPOSITION (Heim 1991), this analysis predicts that zhende is preferred
to dique in contexts where the presuppositions of zhende are satisfied. This is a correct
prediction, which hence provides supporting evidence for our presuppositional analysis.
The principle of M AXIMIZE P RESUPPOSITION (Heim 1991) requires that the speakerchoose from a set of competitors the logical form that carries the most informative
17 The potential of the framework of Farkas & Bruce (2010) is greater than what have been discussed above.
Other pieces of work which adopt this model include Farkas (2011) on imperatives, Chernilovskaya (2014)
on exclamatives, Müller (2014) on German modal particles, Malamud & Stephenson (2015) on tag questions,
etc.

32

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Hara

presupposition. For example, (83-a) carries a presupposition that p ‘It rained last night’ istrue, while (83-b) does not carry this presupposition. That is, (83-a) has a more informative
presupposition than (83-b). In a context where the presupposition of (83-a) is satisfied, i.e.,
when p is true, the speaker will choose (83-a) instead of (83-b) in order to be maximally
informative.
(83)

a.
b.

John knows that it rained last night.
John thinks that it rained last night.

As discussed in Section 2 and 3, the presupposition of dique, that p has been suggested
and all the participants recognize that they know about this suggestion, is one of thepresuppositions of zhende. That is, zhende triggers a more informative presupposition thandique. This predicts that zhende will be preferred to dique when the presuppositions ofzhende are met. For example, in (84), the presuppositions of zhende are satisfied: theproposition p ‘It rained last night’ has been suggested by A and some participant, i.e., B,
was uncommitted to p. The principle of M AXIMIZE P RESUPPOSITION predicts that B ispreferred to B′ . This turns out to be a correct prediction. We presented (84) to ten Mandarin
native speakers and asked them which one, B or B′ , they would use. Nine participants chose
B, while only one participant chose B′ .
(84)

A:

Zuowan xiayu le.
‘It rained last night.’(B is not sure. He opens the window and sees that the ground is wet.)
B: Zhende, xiayu le.
‘Really, it rained.’
B′ : Dique, xiayu le.
‘Indeed, it rained.’

Similarly, native speakers choose to use zhende in examples like (85) in order to maximize
presupposition. The use of dique is unacceptable here.
(85)

Context: Mr. Li and Mrs. Li just had a meeting with their son Xiaoli’s teacher. The
couple are talking with Xiaoli:
Mr. Li: Shang zhouwu ni qu nali le?
‘Where did you go last Friday?’
Xiaoli: Wo zai xuexiao.
‘I was at school.’Mrs. Li: Women zhidao ni bu zai. Zhende, ni qu nali le?
‘We know that you were not. Really, where did you go?’Mrs. Li’: # Women zhidao ni bu zai. Dique, ni qu nali le?
‘We know that you were not. Indeed, where did you go?’Native speakers’ clear preference for zhende in (84) and (85) shows that the use ofzhende is preferred to dique when the presuppositions of zhende are satisfied. This supports
our analysis of these two words as presupposition triggers.

5 Conclusion
Human languages adopt various discourse markers to mark the relationship between theutterance and the context. In this study, we have seen that dique and zhende in Mandarin

Guiding assertions and questions in discourse: Mandarin dique and zhende

33mark different relationships between the utterance containing them and the previous
discourse. Dique marks its prejacent issue as old, while zhende marks this issue as old andnot resolved. These relationships between the utterance and the context are also marked
in other languages. For example, English indeed marks the information as old (Zeevat,
2003: 102) and English man at sentence-final position marks the information as unresolved(McCready, 2008: 706). As pointed out by Zeevat (2003: 103), it is in the speaker’s interest
to use discourse markers. Without discourse markers, the hearer would not have obvious
clues as how to interpret the current utterance with respect to the discourse context, hence thespeaker would be misunderstood. For example, if the speaker did not use dique to mark theold issue, his utterance might be misunderstood as a new issue. Discourse markers convey
information about the previous discourse, and this semantic property is captured by thepresuppositional analysis presented in this study.
On the basis of a naturalness rating experiment, we showed that dique presupposesthat its prejacent issue has been added onto the top of the Table. Therefore, assertions andquestions containing dique always indicate a reiteration of the old issue. In contrast, zhende
presupposes that its prejacent issue has been added onto the top of the Table but someparticipant has failed to resolve this issue. Therefore, assertions and questions containing
zhende emphasize that the participant should resolve the issue and remove it from the Table.
Our study also shows that in order to analyze discourse markers, we need a frameworkthat models how speech acts update the context, since discourse markers contribute to these
updates. Furthermore, dique and zhende mark the same discourse effect whether they modify
assertions or questions. Therefore, the study of dique and zhende supports Farkas & Bruce’s(2010) framework, which models the context-change effects of various speech acts andunifies the effect of assertions and questions.
Acknowledgements We are sincerely grateful to the editors and three anonymous reviewers whose feedback
on earlier versions has tremendously helped improve this paper. Special thanks are also due to Satoshi
Tomioka and Stefan Kaufmann, who introduced us to Farkas & Bruce’s (2010) framework. We are also
grateful to Christopher Davis, Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine, Magdalena Kaufmann, Paul S. Law, Po Lun
Lee Peppina, Elin McCready, Haihua Pan, Kyle Rawlins, Uli Sauerland and Grégoire Winterstein for
their constructive criticism and valuable comments. This research was supported by the Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant number 17JNQN007) awarded to Mengxi Yuan and JSPS
KAKENHI (C) Grant Number 18K00589 awarded to Yurie Hara.

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Appendix: Adverbs at sentence-initial and VP-initial positions
A difference between sentence-initial and VP-initial dique/zhende is that VP-initial adverbs
can be embedded but the sentence-initial ones cannot:(86)

a. *Zhang xiangxin [dique/zhende, Li chuguo le].
Zhang believe indeed/really Li go-abroad PERF
‘Zhang believes that indeed/really Li went abroad.’b. Zhang xiangxin [Li dique/zhende chuguo le].
Zhang believe Li indeed/really go-abroad PERF
‘Zhang believes that Li indeed/really went abroad.’In this paper, a sentence-initial adverb is defined as a sentential force modifier, which takes
a force head as its argument. This correctly predicts that sentence-initial adverbs cannot
be embedded, as clauses indicating sentential forces cannot be embedded in Mandarin. As
pointed out by Han (1998), there are many languages in which embedded clauses cannot
express force. This is indeed the case in Mandarin. Mandarin clauses marked as questions
or commands cannot be embedded. When it appears that these clauses are embedded, they
are in fact direct quotations. For example, ni xihuan wo ma in (87) is a direct quotation of
the question ‘Do you like me’ uttered by Li, and ni lai wo jia ba in (88) is a direct quotationof the command ‘Come to my home’ uttered by Li.
(87)

Li wen [ni xihuan wo ma]
Li ask you like me Q
Li asks: ‘Do you like me?’ (‘me’ = Li)# Li asks if you like me. (‘me’ = the speaker of the whole sentence)(88)

Li yaoqiu [ni lai wo jia ba]
Li request you come my home BA
Li requests: ‘(You) come to my home!’ (‘my home’ = Li’s home)

In contrast, VP-initial dique can be defined as a propositional modifier, which can beembedded:(89)

λα.α⟨T(C)[0]={α}⟩ , and α is of type ⟨s, t⟩

The different denotations correctly predict that sentence-initial dique can occur in a whquestion, whereas VP-initial dique cannot, as in (90). According to (89), VP-initial diquemust take a single proposition of type ⟨s, t⟩ as an argument. Semantically, wh-questions
are composed of a set of propositions (of type ⟨⟨s, t⟩, t⟩) and a force head. Therefore, VPinitial dique is not compatible with wh-questions, and hence (90-b) is ungrammatical. In
contrast, sentence-initial dique can take a set of propositions as its argument, and thus (90-a)

36

Mengxi Yuan, Yurie Harais grammatical. See Yuan (2015) for the detailed discussions on the differences between
sentence-initial and VP-initial dique/zhende.
(90)

a.

b.

Dique, ni qu nali le?
indeed you go where PERF
‘Indeed, where did you go?’*Ni dique qu nali le?
you indeed go where PERF
Literally: ‘You indeed went where?’